"I wake up in the same dim corner of the Crossroads, staring at the same painting. Melinoë as a baby, held by her mother Persephone. Her brother Zagreus beside them. Hades smiling down, the whole family together with the serenity of a dream you wake up forgetting. The game gives me one prompt: "Brood." When I press it, Melinoë scoffs, "You don't remember them, besides this painting and your dreams. But still you fight for them...""
"This piece contains major spoilers for the story of Hades II. And yet, the structure of Hades II seems built for that interrogation. Like its predecessor, it's a roguelike: death, rebirth, progress through repetition. A form that practically begs for introspection. Each failure could have been an opportunity to reveal more of Melinoë's interior life. We could question what "Death to Chronos" even means to her."
Melinoë wakes at the Crossroads before a family painting and responds to the game's prompt with a terse "Brood" and a scoffing line about memory. The narrative repeatedly presents a mantra—"Death to Chronos"—without probing its emotional roots. The roguelike structure of death, rebirth, and repetition invites introspection, yet each failed run becomes a missed opportunity to deepen Melinoë's interior life. The resulting characterization reduces her resistance to a slogan rather than a felt ache. Zagreus exemplifies alignment between protagonist and form, whereas Melinoë's conviction feels assumed and narratively unearned.
Read at Kotaku
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